


The Artist

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Angst, Bodily Harm, Bruises, Bruising, M/M, Reference to Physical Violence, Swearing, reference to sexual activity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:19:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8502250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: Based on an ask/request: What happens when He Tian finally sees the bruises he's made?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted: http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/152877309694/the-artist

He Tian saw them when he shouldn’t have. 

He shouldn’t have because he’d never been given that glimpse into him before. He shouldn’t have because he inflicted but he didn’t soak in the aftermath. He shouldn’t have because it wasn’t his to see. He shouldn’t have—and yet he did. 

The locker room. 

It was hot with summer heat, the smell of sweat and male teenage bodies seeping through the steam of the showers. There was ribald laughter, the metal of locker doors slamming like gun-shots. The slap of towels snapping and bare feet pressing across the floor, the rush of freezing water coming from the showers onto burning bodies. Laughter, startled and choked. Red skin pebbling from the cold.

‘Cold! Cold!’ Jian Yi was crying. He laughed like a child. He was bent at the waist, hands clutching around his stomach while Zhengxi shoved him into the showers, water spraying his pale skin, soft as flowers.

‘Shut up,’ Zhengxi said, ignoring the laughter, the amused looks the other guys were throwing their way. Rolling their eyes. Ignoring them. A comedy act. 

He Tian stepped under the spray of a showerhead, and most of the laughter faded, because he was taller than them, and his cock was bigger than most of theirs. Because he didn’t squeal or swear when the cold hit his skin. 

‘Nice game today, He Tian,’ someone said, genial. Not like the girls were though: it was easier to be around them. They didn’t need to be convinced about who he was so much. He liked girls. They usually wanted to think the best of people. ‘Thought you weren’t going to make that last basket there.’

He Tian shrugged, running a hand through his wet hair. ‘Yeah, well,’ he said, wry. ‘Guess I’m that good.’

His words were met with scoffs and amused _oh, fuck off_ ’s. A grin slipped easy onto his face at the protests. 

‘Can’t all be as wonderfully gifted as you, He Tian,’ Jian Yi said.

He Tian glanced over, gripped his cock in his hand. ‘Yeah, well,’ he said again. Let his eyes travel the length of Jian Yi’s pale, lean body. ‘Guess I’m that good.’

Laughter exploded. 

It echoed off the walls, wolf-whistles and shoulder slaps like sirens and thunderclaps. Jian Yi’s face was flame-red. Zhengxi had his forehead pressed into his palm. 

It was always like that after PE: Bodies thrumming from the adrenaline, from the endorphins, from the testosterone that added a heaviness to a teenage boy locker room. He Tian supposed he was different in that he indulged in it rather than adding to it. He’d lean back against the wall sometimes, get a good look at the skinny ones filled by rib cages and sharp collarbones; at the ones with hair already creeping up between the V of their hips. At the ones with small, round asses that would fit neatly into the palms of He Tian’s hands. 

If they didn’t like it, they left. Turned away. But most of them stood there and let him look at them with hooded eyes and water trailing from his lips. Flushed under the look like they couldn’t help it because someone like him was looking at someone like them. 

Sometimes everyone would leave except one He Tian would suck them with his knees going red on the floor, let their cum wash down the metal drains because he never liked them enough to swallow. Sometimes he’d kiss them against the shower wall until they were shuddering and saying that wasn’t what they wanted but they didn’t let go.

And He Tian would stop, stare at the wall behind them. ‘Sure,’ he would say, hand resting on the inside of a trembling thigh. ‘Come find me when you decide it’s what you _want_. Or, actually, don’t. I don’t do mixed signals.’

_Fucking liar_ , he’d tell himself after, thinking about red hair and false promises. 

_I never wanted you to like me._

He didn’t look today. He hadn’t looked for a week, maybe more. Some of them stood close beside him in the showers like they were waiting for him to glance their way, an accidental brush of a hand on his back like a question mark. He stepped away from it.

Eventually a bell rang, and the showers emptied.

‘He Tian?’

‘Go ahead,’ He Tian told Jian Yi. He kept his voice quiet, so it was lost in the building noise: locker doors shutting again, shoes slipping on, t-shirts pulled over wet hair and the smell of body spray filling the room like toxic acid; it barely escaped through the cracked windows. 

And then silence. The shower still running. He Tian waited. He was cold, and the water never heated up; the school didn’t turn the hot water on in summer. 

The lights went out. 

He Tian leaned his shoulder blades against the tiles, and for a while there was silence. Where He Tian was standing, it would look like there was no one in the showers. 

He Tian pushed down the feeling he felt in his chest when he heard it: clothes pulled off, bundled fabric hitting the floor. Footsteps, quiet and soft and _tentative_ walking over.

A shadow in the archway – no door. Everything was on show. Which, He Tian supposed, was why he came in now. Except— _why_? Because of him? Did He Tian scare him that much? Was Guan Shan that much of a coward?

‘Been waiting for you.’

He saw the moment Guan Shan stilled, the vague outline of him freezing up. He took a step back. 

He Tian straightened. ‘Get in the fucking shower, Guan Shan.’

He took another step. 

‘I’ll fucking drag you in.’

This time, Guan Shan didn’t move. 

_Is this what they call an impasse?_ He Tian thought. But he didn’t think it sounded right. The words sounded like it meant peace—some sort of truce. This, instead, felt like waiting for a bomb to go off. 

‘I warned you,’ said He Tian. And suddenly he was moving, too fast for Guan Shan to see the threat—to see He Tian—and his eyes had barely widened before He Tian was dragging him under the cold spray, before he was crying out from the water that felt like burning in the first few seconds and the way He Tian had a hand on his neck and between his shoulder blades and wouldn’t let him move from it because—

‘You’re such a fucking idiot,’ He Tian hissed in his ear, voice skittering off the tiles. ‘Sneaking about because of me? You’re not a fucking _ten-year-old_.’

Guan Shan didn’t say anything. He was shaking; his skin was so tense under He Tian’s hands. He stayed there like He Tian had placed him and he wasn’t allowed to move. 

Silence stretched—only breathing and running water. 

He Tian pushed him away in disgust, didn’t let it show on his face when something in him twinged as Guan Shan’s body hit the opposite wall with a smack. As he cried out. As he just stayed there, pressed up against it, clawed fingers biting into the tiles like he could grip them with his hands. 

He Tian ran a hand across his face. ‘Stop fucking _running_ , Guan Shan—’

‘Just _fuck off_.’ His voice was whisper quiet, but the locker room echoed too much, and there was no one else there. He could have shouted it and He Tian would have heard it no clearer. 

‘Don’t tell me to—’

‘ _Just fuck off!_ ’

It was a scream, and it ran through He Tian like a live wire. It ripped from Guan Shan’s throat, raw, and He Tian had never heard that kind of thing before. He didn’t think people his age could sound like that. 

_Full of surprises,_ he might have said, but the words lingered like they’d left traces, and He Tian thought he could feel the sound running across his skin. It was possible, apparently, that he could feel even colder.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he said instead. Stared at him. The way he cowered like he couldn’t bring himself to look at He Tian even in the darkness—the coldness. __

_You used to be such a fighter,_ he thought.

And He Tian, suddenly, was too aware of himself: of the way Guan Shan flinched when he leaned his body forward, when it looked like he was about to take a step. 

‘Just go away, He Tian,’ Guan Shan whispered. ‘I can’t—I can’t deal with you right now. I can’t deal with—with the kind of person you are.’

‘The kind of person.’

‘Just leave,’ he said. And then: ‘Please.’

He Tian blinked. ‘All right what the _fuck_ is going on?’

‘Nothing,’ Guan Shan said. He had his forehead pressed into the cold tile. He Tian couldn’t see the gleam of his eyes and assumed they would be closed. Like even seeing He Tian in the darkness was too much for him. Like closing them was the best he could do to leave, for a little while, and pretend nothing else existed. ‘Nothing is going on except you being exactly who you always fucking are and—’

‘What the fuck does _that_ mean—’

‘Oh don’t pretend like you don’t _know_ —’

‘I _don’t_ know,’ He Tian said, too loud, and he pushed Guan Shan around until his back was in the shower wall, until he could see the way Guan Shan seemed to pale beneath He Tian’s grip on his shoulder. 

He Tian stared at him, and leaned close. 

He squeezed Guan Shan’s shoulder.

The response was a quiet, pained gasp. A wince. He Tian reared back. 

‘Please, just—’

He Tian couldn’t bear to hear him say that word again. It rearranged things too much. It wasn’t how things _worked_ between them. It turned Guan Shan into one thing and made He Tian into something else. 

He was pulling him out the showers before he knew, really, what he was doing. He could feel Guan Shan’s stumbling on shaking legs, feet skidding wet on the floor, tripping over himself as He Tian pulled him out into the locker room.

‘Fuck—Get off— _Get off me_ , _He Tian_ —’

‘Shut up,’ said He Tian, fingers wrapped around Guan Shan’s wrists.

It was a bruising grip, blooming flowers across his skin. He Tian couldn’t call himself an artist.

He turned the light switch on, on the panel beside the wall, and there was a sound of clinking metal as the bulb’s flickered into life, slow at first, before it raced through the light strips above them, light closing in on them, and Guan Shan was struggling in his grip so much that He Tian thought he might get loose. 

And then Guan Shan’s peach pale skin was lit up, and Guan Shan made a sound like a cry as he bowed his head. Like he was ashamed. 

He Tian didn’t know, for a moment, what he was seeing. Everything was trying to make sense to him through eyes that were still adjusting to the light. Hot air was rushing through the cracks in the windows, but He Tian did not feel warmer.

He swallowed, throat clicking. ‘Who—‘ And then he had to stop. For a second. Catch his breath. ‘Did you—Was it She Li?’

Guan Shan didn’t look at him. He was trying to pull away, but not really pulling this time. He Tian was holding his wrist, still, Guan Shan’s arm outstretched between them like a tether. His head was turned away, eyes down. 

_You give up so easily,_ He Tian would have said. Would have said it once. But now he could see the mess of purple across Guan Shan’s stomach, his collarbones, his knees. The shoulder where He Tian’s hand had just pressed and tormented. His body was the dirty palette of an artist painting a summer storm: violet clouds, shadowed trees pulled by hot wind, the charge in the air.

So cold still, aware of his own nakedness now, but He Tian felt like he was in the eye of it.

‘Guan Shan, I—I wouldn’t have touched you if…’

He trailed off, because he realised that he _was touching him still_ , and because Guan Shan made a sound that might have been a laugh but sounded like a sob.

‘You’re so _stupid_ , sometimes,’ Guan Shan said, strangled. ‘You’re so fucking stupid. And you’re so _cruel_ and you only _care_ about people when you _want something_ and—’

‘What are you talking about,’ He Tian said, flat. He felt himself still because the words carried with them something he’d heard before. Something he would realise, later, was called truth. 

_You’re a fake,_ Guan Shan had said once, and it had felt like this: hurting to hear it, and knowing it was true.

He Tian said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking ab—’

‘It was _you_ ,’ Guan Shan choked out. He Tian couldn’t tell what was water and what were tears, his eyelashes like spiderwebs caught by morning dew. ‘ _She Li_? It was _you_. _You_ did this.’

‘No,’ He Tian said. ‘I—No—I didn’t—’

‘It’s right in front of you and you can’t _see_ it. This is where you hit me, yeah? This is where you kneed me in the chest and cracked my rib because you thought it wouldn’t really _hurt_ me. Do you recognise it? Do you recognise the shape of it? What about here? Do my lips look like yours where you fucking _forced yourself_ —’

‘ _Stop it_ ,’ He Tian ground out. He had Guan Shan pushed into the wall. Felt his stomach drop as he heard the thud of Guan Shan’s head hit the plaster. As Guan Shan stared at him, dazed, pupils bursting.

‘I didn’t mean to—That wasn’t what I wanted to do to you,’ he told him. ‘It’s how boys are, yeah? It’s just—it’s just what we _do_ —’

‘Mm—no,’ said Guan Shan, soft, shaking his head. He wasn’t even looking at He Tian now. His eyes were falling somewhere past him, unfocused. His voice sounded different. ‘No. Boys… They do something else. You… I don’t know what you’re calling this. I think this is everything that you are.’

_Everything that you are_. And what was that? What was it, exactly, that he had been doing? Throwing his weight into him, pushing into him until he broke because it was _okay._ It was what people _did_. __

_And do they all look like that afterwards?_ something whispered. _Look at him._

And He Tian did. He could see the impressions he’d left on him. Not impressions, no. This was not a tender memorial of something cast into Guan Shan’s skin. This was not kindness and lingering kisses. This was nothing so ephemeral. 

Some of them were the yellow of lemon skins. Some of them were a green like shimmering centre of a rainbow. But most of them were angry purples and blacks, and He Tian didn’t know how to describe those as something beautiful. Summer storms weren’t gentle.

Guan Shan’s breath hitched, and He Tian realised he had his fingertips on him. On his hip bones. On his stomach. He could go lower, if he wanted, and the possibility hit him like a car cash. 

‘Don’t,’ said Guan Shan.

He Tian shook his head. ‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘You’re thinking about it.’

He Tian stared at him. ‘Will you ever want something from me?’

_Don’t answer. Don’t answer._

‘I’ll never want something if this is all you’re ever giving me.’

The words ricocheted in his head. He let Guan Shan pass. Watched him pull his uniform from his locker and button his shirt with trembling fingers and wince as he leaned down to pull his trainers on. Covered, and hidden, and he looked like He Tian had only ever seen him.

He might never have known. 

‘Guan Shan, I’m—’

‘Don’t,’ Guan Shan said again, pulling his bag out and slamming the locker shut. ‘We both know you’re a liar. Stop trying to prove it all the time.’

‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ He Tian said. It was admitting something and it was startling and he _hated_ it. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen.’

Guan Shan threw him a look, at the door, like this was all worse than anything else He Tian had done to him. Like the bruises were nothing. Like he could take his casual punches and the breaking of blood vessels more than _that_.

He said, before he left, ‘Stop using me to try and figure yourself out, He Tian.’

A bell rang. He Tian had missed class. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, to an empty locker room. 

His own voice echoed back at him, and it said, snide, ‘ _I’m sorry_.’

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted: http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/152877309694/the-artist


End file.
